Sheet materials, such as textiles, paper, tarpaulin, canvas, flexible plastics, fencing materials, flexible solar energy conversion circuitry panels, often have surface areas that extend for dozens or hundreds of square feet. Where the surface area of a deployed sheet is defined as extending in a width dimension that is orthogonal to a length dimension, prior art sheets include sheets having widths greater than six feet and lengths longer than ten feet.
Sheet materials are often packed for shipment by folding into flat layered sections and in some cases then rolled after this flattened folding. In an optional additional step, the sheet material may be wrapped about an axis that is parallel with the width dimension of the instant sheet in order to package and ship the sheet material with a reduced maximum length in any one dimension. In certain cases, consumers and business purchasers of sheet material would prefer to dispense and deploy sheet material by a single action of rolling out the sheet material from a rolled state. The extension and dispensing of the packaged sheet material from a rolled state is made more difficult when the material is received by the consumer (a.) folded into flattened layers, or (b.) folded into flattened layers and then rolled in this layered state.
As used herein, the terms “sheet material” and “sheet” mean a material that is thin in comparison to its length and breadth. For example, certain sheet materials may be less than 0.20 inch thick, or less than 0.01 inch thick, while presenting a surface area that is several feet in width and several feet in length. Generally speaking, sheet materials should exhibit a relatively flat planar configuration and be flexible to permit folding, rolling, stacking, and the like. Exemplary sheets and sheet materials include, but are not limited to, flexible materials such as a netting, elastomer netting, deer netting, tarpaulin, canvas, fencing materials, barrier materials, plant protection materials, organic fabric, textile, cloth, metallic threaded fabric, aramid fiber, polyester film, elastomer sheet, metallic foil, metallic film, paper tissue, paper towels, label rolls, or other fibrous, film, flexible solar energy conversion circuitry panels, polymers, and filamentary products. As can be seen from the breadth of materials that sheet materials may comprise, materials shaped into sheets are widely used in agricultural, agrarian, domestic, and urban environments. Yet the prior art fails to optimally enable reconfiguration of the form factor of rolled sheets while also protecting the sheet material.
It is understood that the scope of meaning of the term “flexible solar energy conversion circuitry panel” as used herein is defined to include (1.) a thin film solar panel marketed by Nanosolar Corporation of San Jose, Calif. and (2.) a thin film solar panel marketed by First Solar Corporation of Tempe, Ariz. It is further understood that the scope of meaning of the term “netting” as used herein is defined to include one or more sheets of polyethylene mesh, trellis netting, a Ross Deer Netting™ deer netting material, a sheet of Wild Life Netting™, a Burpee Garden™ trellis netting marketed by W. Atlee Burpee and Co. of Warminster, Pa., and other suitable flexible netting known in the art.
There is therefore a long felt need to provide methods and devices that more broadly enable the placement of sheet material into a rolled state for storage and shipment, and for dispensing and deploying sheet material from a rolled state.